


The Hunger Songfic Challenge 10: The Distillers - Dismantle Me

by BellaFuckingRockwell



Series: Bella's 10 Songfics for 10 Songs Challenge [10]
Category: David Bowie (Musician), The Hunger (TV 1997)
Genre: Dark Romance, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love, Murder References, Obsessive Love, Songfic, Songfic Challenge, destructive love, dismantle me, messed up relationship, suicide references, the distillers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 18:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20295814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellaFuckingRockwell/pseuds/BellaFuckingRockwell
Summary: I've done an old exercise that used to rattle around the LiveJournal fic communities. The exercise is that you put your music library on shuffle and you write a fic in a certain fandom based on the first 10 songs that come up. They're usually meant to be drabbles, but I personally don't do drabbles bc I'm a verbose mf so they're just a bunch of short fics instead. My chosen fandom is The Hunger TV show and pairing throughout is Julian/Drew. They're loosely linked but aren't meant to be linear. I've also been pretty liberal with some of them in terms of how much they're actually based on the song!As it's The Hunger, the themes throughout are pretty fucking dark and potentially triggering in places. I'll post separate warnings for each one, but as a rule they're pretty much all NSFW for violence and/or smut (varying degrees of graphic). 18+ only, should go without saying.DISCLAIMER: I own absolutely nothing. The characters and settings do not belong to me. I'm merely a little fish in a big pond trying to amuse myself. Good day Sir.Song 10 of 10: The Distillers - Dismantle MeSynopsis: Drew reflects on her relationship with Julian.





	The Hunger Songfic Challenge 10: The Distillers - Dismantle Me

The skies above the penitentiary are indignant and bleak today, bloated clouds threatening a storm. In the yard below, Julian is working on one of his outdoor sculptures, a cartoonishly grotesque merry-go-round of mummified skeletons. Drew doesn't know if they're replicas, and she doesn't really want to find out. He's had to be very careful recently. The police are sniffing around a lot these days, and despite the legal loopholes he has such a talent for finding that technically allow him to carry out his gruesome work, neither of them need the stress. Or any more bad publicity, for that matter.  
He's off guard, entirely relaxed, unaware he's being spied on. Drew presses her hand to the window, as if to do so is like touching him, getting closer. She doesn't like it when he works for long stretches, neglects her, needing to be alone to think and sculpt and build. So she settles for finding a good angle to watch him from, in this case from a windowed corridor on the third floor, unobtrusive, unknown, yet still with him. It's almost as though she needs the physical sight of him to remind herself that he's real, that he hasn't left, that she isn't about to wake up from a fantastical and grisly dream, doomed to spend the rest of her life seeking to match it in reality.   
As Julian crouches down and lays one of the skeletal pieces across his thighs, reaching up for a wire to hang it from, he's half-smiling, absolutely lost in the simple, primal joy of creation. Drew loves seeing him like this, finding peace in his art, protected from the taunting self-loathing and nihilism that occupies his thoughts. She presses her forehead against the cool glass of the window. That's the problem though, isn't it? Julian truly does hate himself, and her love, soothing though it is at times, will always be a mere drop in the ocean compared to that. At times, she likes to think she's softened him somewhat, lessened his pain even a little, but then he'll do something that will completely prove her wrong. Like tear his own arm apart on national television. Or toss and turn throughout the night, until his violent writhing wakes her up, when he'll grab her in a fit of despair and beg her to kill him. It hurts that she herself is not even a reason to live, despite the possessive, pure, intoxicating, violent love he displays on a daily basis. Despite the way he lets her see every little part of him, even the parts he's spent his life hiding. It's hard to believe that the Julian who will wrestle her to the floor and wrap his hands around her throat during an argument is the same Julian who brings her English tea in bed when she's sick; who is just as capable of forcing himself on her in anger as he is of charming her to bed with sweet caresses, longing kisses, before tenderly making love to her. If he can trust her enough to let her see all these secret corners, why won't he let her fix him? Wake him up, change things, the way he's entirely changed her?   
Drew is clueless. She takes in his form, watching his piece take shape. He rarely works with sculpture, and she wonders what drives the inspiration. He stands over it, lips twisted in thought, strands of hair falling into his face, his unnerving, beautiful eyes. He places his hands on his hips, callused and dexterous from years of work, hands that have made her scream in pleasure and submit to their force; hands that stroke her hair, her face, make her grab onto him in pure need.  
Julian is the only lover she's ever had who truly understands her. The only one who's ever cared enough to dismantle her, like she's one of his corpses, to discover what was within; put her back together as some contorted and beautifully disgusting, shiny new version of herself, one he could love and one she could finally live with. Drew has been with many men before, but something with them was always missing. Something she craved until she was sick with it, although she could never identify exactly what it was. Left empty, emotionally destitute, she'd given up on love altogether. Not long after, she'd decided to accept this live-in job the agency offered her, working with an artist, she understood, as she had done many times before. It wasn't until she arrived, though, that she realised she'd be working for the notorious Julian Priest.   
At first, he'd been vile towards her; temperamental, rude, expecting her to work the ridiculous hours he did until she waned and passed out at her desk. If she vomited at the smell of decomposition, he laughed; if she complained, he dismissed her and made her feel worthless. Yet she stayed. She didn't understand why she stayed; Julian was a fucking creep, an asshole who evoked such an anger in her that she fantasised about strapping him down in the infirmary and cutting him to ribbons with his own scalpels. Still, the arrival of her rage at least brought her the realisation that she was no longer depressed. As time went on, Julian's contempt for her manifested in lingering glares, firm, yet longing touches on the small of her back, guiding her into the infirmary to work when she tried to shrink away from whatever gruesome offering he had on the gurney. Her fantasies changed in kind; thoughts of _what would it be like to kill Julian?_ became _what would it be like to fuck him?_ She got her wish shortly afterwards, after a particularly heated argument where she'd thrown her gloves at him and told him she quit; no sooner had he grabbed her to stop her from leaving than had she pressed her mouth up to his, and as he grasped her firmly and returned the kiss that seemed to last several eternities, all she'd ever known, felt unfulfilled by, dissolved.   
Julian sits down beside the half-finished piece, shivering a little in the cold; he lights a cigarette, pulling his coat taut around him. Over the years, he has sworn up and down that despite his violence, his force, he could never, would never, kill her. She doesn't completely believe him, not with her full heart, and wonders if by saying that he's really trying to convince her or himself. Regardless of it, all Drew knows is that she wants him beside her until her death, and whether that will come naturally or by Julian's hand remains to be seen.  
But what of his death, though? Her need to have him, all of him, for all of time, seems selfish when she considers that whatever desire he has to hurt others, his desire to hurt himself is greater. After over 50 years of keeping it in check Drew can sense him losing the battle. She fingers the trigger of the gun she holds, by her side, out of sight beneath the window. If she were to take him, finally bring him peace... would that be the most selfless, loving act she could ever perform? Realising, and accepting, that she will just never be enough for him the way he is for her? He has asked her, after all, so many times.  
Drew sucks in a breath, heart hammering against her chest. With shaking fingers, she pulls at the window's lock. It creaks, shudders, as she wrangles it open. Julian jolts, startled, his head whipping up to look for the source of the noise. He's always on high alert, paranoid; years of intruders and journalists trying to break in have done that to him.  
His eyes settle on her. Her gut twists; she's silent.  
“Can I help you?” He's scowling, indignant at being disturbed.  
Drew stands, dumbly. The hand holding the gun remains at her side, heavy as lead. Her mind screams at her to do it, lift, aim, put him out of his wretched fucking misery.  
He raises his eyebrows at her, encouraging her response.  
Drew swallows, hard. “It's nothing, Julian. I just...” She lets the gun fall from her fingers, which are suddenly limp. Hears it hit the floor; hopes the sound won't travel outside. “I... missed you.”  
Julian's face softens. He takes a drag of his cigarette, then smiles. “I miss you too, love. I'll be in later.”  
She looks up to the skies again, their clouds grey, slapdash watercolours. She hears Julian say something; maybe something like “you look terrible”, his voice laced with concern. Her hands begin to shake; fuck. _Was I really about to do that?_  
Then Drew has to slam the window closed, just as the rain begins to fall outside.


End file.
